


Midsummer Night's Dream is Shit and I'll Fight You

by TotallyARealPerson



Series: Avatar: the Last Airbender fics [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23875072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotallyARealPerson/pseuds/TotallyARealPerson
Summary: Zuko dies after the Agni Kai. But the universe isn't done with him, so he gets replaced by a playwright from an alternate dimension.Send Iroh help with this chaotic prankster asshole.
Relationships: Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Series: Avatar: the Last Airbender fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719610
Comments: 2
Kudos: 177





	Midsummer Night's Dream is Shit and I'll Fight You

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to apologize to anyone who comes here from Burnt Curtains. This one's way worse, take my word for it.

Waking up felt... _fuzzy_ was probably the most accurate word. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, noticed he felt WARM, and blinked.

He pushed back the blankets and walked to the left, where he knew the door to his room was. He tripped. _Okay, since when were there stairs by my bed?_

He reached for the door knob, finding only clear, reflective glass. _And since when is there a mirror in my bedroom?_ He looked at the rest of his wall, convinced he'd only missed the door knob by a few centimeters. _Since when was my bed facing the door?_ He did a double-take at his reflection. _AND SINCE WHEN AM I ZUKO?_

That last sentence finally registered. _Aw, man! I wanted to be Toph!_

He pulled at the bandages covering his left eye and winced. _How long after the Agni Kai would this have been? I'm still in the palace, I recognize this place from_ Zuko Alone _. But... Are the terms of my banishment set in yet? Where the hell am I?_

At least a dozen servants rushed in. "Prince Zuko, you should be resting! Your wound is still healing!"

"Of course my wound is still healing. Aren't I banished?" Zuko asked.

The foremost servant put a hand to Zuko's forehead and winced. "Yes, but you're permitted to stay here three more days. By order of the doctor."

"Are you under my command for that time?" Zuko asked.

"Yes," the meekest boy answered.

"Then I'd like my most frequently-used clothing packed into a trunk, along with my books and plays, and any weapons I know how to use; I'll get the rest. I also need a manual for naval operations and all the decrees made by any Fire Lord in the past three centuries." Half leapt on that immediately.

"Anything else?" someone asked.

"Yes. I'd like two maps: one for the ancient location for the Sun Warriors, and for the Southern Water Tribe." Zuko started getting dressed on his own.

"Not the air temples, sir?" a different voice asked.

"Did I fucking stutter?" Zuko asked, putting on his best terrifying-Azula-DOASISAIDRIGHTNOWIFYOUDON'TWANTTOENDUPLIKECHARCOAL-voice.

Whoever said that ~~like an idiot~~ flinched. "No, sir."

"Good," Zuko said. "How many bending scrolls do we have?"

"Two hundred and thirteen unique scrolls, sir," one of the remaining servants said.

"And how many for elements other than firebending?" Zuko asked.

"Three hundred and sixty-four."

"Please arrange for a copy of each of those scroll to be on my ship by the time I have to leave."

"Your father hasn't requisitioned a ship for you, yet, sir."

Zuko paused. He knew if he requested the _Wani_ , he would either get it, or his father would veto him and give him a rowboat. "What style of ship does Commander Zhao have?"

"... It is the Battleship-style, Prince Zuko."

"Please request one of the Battleship-style ships that isn't currently in use for my purposes."

"There isn't one."

Zuko turned towards her. "Then among the ships, which is relatively functional and not currently in use?"

"The _Wani_ , sir."

Zuko rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The please reinstate the _Wani_ under the command of whoever will accompany me. Get everything ready, and when my father says my ship is ready, load everything on there. Not in the Captains' chambers, or for the second-in-command; load it in the TIC's room." His captain would be Uncle, and the SIC's room would be Jee's. That made him think; "Has my father assembled the crew yet?"

"Yes. They're all over, you'll have to retrieve them on route."

"Right. You're dismissed, tell me when you have everything ready."

 _So,_ Zuko said inside his head. _I don't really feel like being an angry jerk for three years. It might get my shipmates to mutiny. And my shipmates might get nervous about me suddenly being plot-Zuko when Aang shows up. So, the solution is obvious: SCREW WITH THE TIMELINE FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES. Uncle might notice something's off, though. Might have to tell him if push comes to shove._

There was a pause in his head as he contemplated this.

 _WE SHOULD GET SOME TEA!_ his mind suddenly yelled in a voice that kinds sounded like Iroh.

_Eh, sure. Why not._

So Zuko got some tea. All alone. There was definitely no voice in his head, and he knew he convinced the servants of that, maybe even effectively. But no, nu-uh was he gonna tell anyone but Uncle the truth. And especially not that he wasn't actually born-and-bred Prince Zuko of Caldera.

Ya know. Unless they asked him specifically.

~?~

No one noticed Azula's purple hair until she started yelling at people for switching out her shampoo with hair dye, and then breathing fire when they didn't give her the answers she wanted. They did, however, notice Prince Zuko giggling in the third hallways away from Azula's rooms, and decided to leave him to his sister's mercy. Sibling rivalries were up to the siblings.

People definitely noticed, however, when a shoe hit Fire Lord Ozai in the face. Giggling came from the rafters on the ceiling, but no one caught the giggly thing because they didn't want to. It wasn't as if they chucked a rock at him or anything.

Only the guards around Ursa's room noticed that her necklaces and tapestries were gone. A quick investigation found Zuko sleeping with his mother's dusty wall art depicting the four elemental nations and didn't bother asking any more questions.

No one bothered asking where General Iroh went, or why Ozai's war room smelled like burnt hair and lavender incense; mostly because the first person who did got a warning fireball to the foot.

~?~

Zuko looked rather stupid bald.

But his hair managed to grow back in less than five months, so hooray!

During that time, their course was basically 'Zuko throws a dart at a map and that's where they go'. Zuko was a lot less concerned with finding the Avatar's location than his canon counterpart, considering he knew exactly when and where Aang was going to be.

He was also a lot less desperate. Without the instinct to nip at Fire Lord Ozai's heels, Zuko was a lot less crazy. He participated in Music Nights, too! Because it was fun!

It was always another song from his other dimension. From composers old and young, classical to pop to rock to folk rock to country, music in other languages (they were particularly confused by the miscellaneous Gaelic/English music), the originals and the covers, no matter the gender of the composer, whether it conformed with the odd instruments or not, Zuko sang.

He wasn't horrible at it (or at least, no one covered their ears and moaned in agony whenever he sang like what happened when his mom tries to sing) and taking a crash-course in Tsungi Horn helped, but writing down the lyrics and giving Teruko a general beat and melody was far easier, especially for the women's songs. For the duets, they worked together.

And then he read some of the plays (because somehow he could read Japanese script and work in the Firebending Martial Arts despite not having training in either), and decided, I need some entertainment at least partially based on my culture of origin, especially if I'm going to be heralded as a creator of such a diverse pool of options.

So he wrote down all the myths he could. He wrote all the scientific theory he could. He wrote stories on WW2, he drew comparisons between Hitler, Stalin, and Fire Lord Ozai, and remarked blithely and with extremely negative criticism about each of the three, he wrote about the war of Vietnam, he wrote about the Cold War, he wrote about Marvel comics, _Treasure Island_ , _Treasure Planet_ , Shakespeare's works, _Inception_ , all the Japanese manga he could remember without all the grossness (like (shudders) perversion, pedophilia, and incest), Sherlock Holmes, how a world might work without bending (so, basically a sitcom), how the world might work using a different kind of bending like in a series of books titled Arthurian Legends, he wrote an equivalent for _Twelve Angry Men_ , stories about the Avatar, and even wrote a story about ATLA, but exactly how it happened in the show. Man, his crew will be pissed in three years!

And then he wrote drafts for _My Little Ostrich-Pony_ , _Transformers: Destruction of Cybertron_ , _Spirit of the Opera_ , _Annoying Orange_ , an entire John Pinette script, _Lucifer_ , _Star Trek_ (all the series and all the good movies), _Star Wars_ without Reylo because Reylo was gross and Rey deserved better, _Voltron_ but in a good way, _Orange is the new Black_ , _Merlin_ , _Harry Potter_ , _Twilight_ but better, more comedy, some fanfictions that he considered better than canon, etc.

And then he left them in the break room.

The stuff that was all written out was kept at the bottom of his trunk, and the only key was in his pocket. He had piles of fresh paper for all the paperwork he knew they would need since all his pages were gone, and they may need more loose pages. All the drafts were gone the next day.

Zuko giggled and doubled the budget on paper.

Iroh found out it was Zuko quicker than a lightning strike.

"Zuko, why are you becoming such a prolific author so suddenly?"

"Because, Uncle. I'm not just a ship's captain, I'm also a leader of a community, and communities need entertainment, culture, creative outlets. Since we aren't exactly privy to each piece of literature and plays back home, I should think it's only natural that we should make some for ourselves," Zuko said, almost word-for-word the argument Captain Janeway used against Tuvok in _Worst Case Scenario_.

He'd left several quotes there too, just to give them some things to jog the creative juices. He sometimes heard them practicing in the bathrooms or when duty shifts were particularly long.

And then it got even more basic. All the children's books he could remember, all the Disney movies that weren't shit, a lot from Pixar and Dreamworks but in ways that improved on the shit, really all the movies in general, _Toy Story_ , _Monsters Inc_ , _Monsters University_ (but he made it the prequel instead of the sequel). _Mr Peabody and Sherman_ was particularly popular.

And then even more basic. The story of _Titanic_ , Atlantis, Frankenstein, Dracula, mummies, werewolves, sea creatures, folklore, and anything else he could think of.

Again, left in the break room. He did a regular drop-off of at least five original stories from his original dimension per week, some fictional and some non-fictional, some drafted and some completed. Some of them were even collected and serialized, signed Vesper Radiance every single time. The chapters were separated in some of them, and the books were passed all over the ship before a policy was eventually made that the comics or books had to be gathered in a library.

And that's when everything got funny.

People started to theorize about who could be making these drafts. "Perhaps Iroh", they said, "he seems like an artistic type." Some of them whispered that it might be Teruko, Natsu, or Tadao; they were particularly artistic. Kyo thought it might be Kuzon of Cinder.

None of them got it right, but it was funny beyond belief to see them try.

Morale was really high. Writing was mostly contained to the break room, but people in the lunch areas were gushing about the stories too, like Oh my Agni, have you read the latest chapter of Spidersnake-Man and No, and no spoilers, I'm getting it from Teruko tonight, and Too bad, I'm telling you anyways. It's always really funny listening to their conversations and conspiracy theories, even when they're totally wrong, and so-wrong-it-makes-my-cheeks-hurt smiling kinda funny.

Natsu may not be the one copying the stories, but that didn't mean he didn't do a lot. He found out who was copying the stories (it didn't take a lot, considering he saw absentminded doodles of Dr Strange on the back of his paperwork) and then got permission to sell the complete ones in the various ports for money as long as no one knew they were Fire Nation or that the Prince is writing dozens of different plays instead of focusing on his duties. 

My Little Ostrich-pony

very quickly became famous across the Earth Kingdom as a children's book.

Zuko was very pleased. They doubled up on paper, left it in the common room hoping for bait for the mysterious author. Yeah, no. Blue Spirit skills-with-a-Z were SUPER effective against that bullcrap. He got that paper, kept it in his trunk, and kept writing, silently cackling.

And Natsu joined in on the fun as a beta-reader, picked up his draft for Twilight-but-better, and then they had nightly writing sessions. They spanned for hours both knew they should be sleeping for, but didn't because the temptation to keep at it was TOO MUCH.

And then Zuko crashed for twelve hours.

When he woke up, the whole ship was FREAKING OUT. It was a Thursday, the normal day when the chapters would be updated, and there was no update. So people started worrying that there was no more material, until Zuko left a note on Friday saying he was taking a mental health break. Cause it's fucking exhausting coming up with all this shit, ya know? 

They accepted that and stopped freaking out.

**Author's Note:**

> **How they mutiny because of this is left to interpretation.**
> 
> Same rules as listed at the end of Burnt Curtains apply. I encourage you to read that one, too.


End file.
